Pietism, Enlightenment and the Public Sphere in the Long Eighteenth Century
January 24-26 2003.
Fuglsø Center.
Pietism and the Politics of Catechisms
The Case of Denmark and Norway in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Henrik Horstbøll
In 1885 in Christiania (now Oslo) there appeared a 39-page booklet book entitled “The
Shortcomings of Pontoppidan’s Exposition and the Principles for a New One.” The educator
and politician Niels Hertzberg had published the little tract in order to gather support for the
renewal of children’s religious instruction in school and church in Norway. The first sentence
posed the problem: “To advocate a new authorized school textbook for Religion or an altered
edition of Pontopiddan’s text is nothing new, but an old idea within church and school.”1 Erik
Pontoppidan’s exposition of Luther’s Short Catechism was still a living tradition and a state
authorized foundation for instruction in Norway nearly 150 years after the book had left the
printing house in Copenhagen, in 1737, with the cryptic title “Truth to God-fearingness”.2
Pontoppidan’s exposition of the church-catechism was the first general and
authorized manual for teaching Christianity in Denmark and Norway, and abridged editions
or extracts of Pontopiddan’s exposition had for decades replaced the original text on the
market. Nevertheless, the manual’s main content and key concepts had remained intact.
After the Eidswoll Constitution 1814, it had been decided by supreme resolution in
1818 that Pontoppidan’s exposition or Saxtorph’s extract of it were the authorized texts in
Norway’s public schools and to be used for instruction of pupils until a “new manual or new
manuals in Religion might be introduced”.3 Erik Pontoppidan’s manual was thus Norwegian
tradition in the 1800s, while the situation was completely different in Denmark.
Here Pontoppidan’s exposition became a symbol of opposition to state power and to
the state Church in the first half of the 19th century. In 1794, Pontoppidan’s text had officially
been replaced by a new one authored by Bishop Balle, and in Denmark the authorities
retained use of Balle’s manual. The authority of the local pastor rose and fell with the ability
to keep the former manual out of the classroom. Whereas Pontoppidans book in Norway
during the 1830s contained everything necessary to know about salvation, the struggles in
1
Denmark to obtain permission to use Pontoppidan’s text by free choice continued into the
1830s and 1840s in various congregations from Jutland to Bornholm. Pontoppidan’s text had
been a gathering point for anti-authoritarian revivalist movements which undermined the
absolutist state Church
Few books have had so much power over minds in Denmark and Norway, and few
books have aroused so much debate and conflict over such a long period of time as Erik
Pontoppidan’s exposition of the church-catechism. This is in itself sufficient grounds to
investigate what it was that preoccupied these minds. Moreover, Pontoppidan’s manual had
roots in pietist discourse. From the end of the 17th century and in the beginning of the 18th,
pietist ideas played a key role in church and state policies across national boundaries,
stretching from Württemberg over Prussia to Scandinavia. Hence, the history of
Pontoppidan’s text also has comparative interest for the question of relations between pietism
and political culture.4
In the following I will discuss some key concepts within Pontoppidan in relation to the
manual’s historical context: the Second Reformation. What kind of view of man was
imprinted on the public in the period, which began in 1730s. I investigate the diffusion of the
text and the context of its utilisation. What kinds of attitudes about the individual, about
society and the authorities were placed at the disposal of the citizens’ interpretation of their
environment? Finally, I focus on the conflicts in connection with the use of Pontoppidan’s
manual and the conflicts, which arose when the authorities tried to replace it in Norway and
Denmark.
The reason for choosing Pontoppidan’s manual and genre is simple: the catechism and
its exposition was the portal to the written word. From the Reformation to the first decades of
the 19th century, Luther’s Short Catechism, together with prayers, psalms and the exposition
of the catechism, were the entry into the world of the book, supplemented only by the signs
and activities of the almanac and the calendar. For those who overcame the barriers of
literacy, the spectrum of possible reading was extended. The foundation, however, was
religious reading. However, before we embark on the analysis of Pontoppidan’s text, it is
necessary to describe the context in which his new religious textbook arose.
2
“The Second Reformation”, 1736-1739
One of the first official historical commemorations in Denmark and Norway was the
Bicentenary of the Reformation. The commemoration of the completion of the Reformation
took place in the churches on October 30th, 1736.5 The Reformation was not only a historical
tradition, and the Bicentenary was not only the commemoration of an old victory. It was also
an occasion to pursue current ecclesiastical policy. The Jubilee year of 1736 had commenced
on January 13th with a decree on the confirmation of youth.6
An additional benefit of the youth’s confirmation was that “the entire congregation
could thereby be reminded of its duty and obtain an admirable occasion to good and fruitful
construction of its Christianity”.7 But how? The brief, almost compressed questions and
answers in Luther’s Short Catechism could be laid out and learned in many ways, and there
were many expositions circulating on the book market. In principle, the books were all
subjected to theological censorship by the University of Copenhagen. However, sorting out
the clearly distorted teachings was quite different from establishing an authoritative set of
precepts in line with the modern religious tendencies of a moderate pietistic character. This
was the concern of the King and of the main part of the Government. In the Jubilee year of
1736, Christian VI had his court pastor, Erik Pontoppidan, begin drafting the obligatory
confirmation manual—the new exposition of the church-catechism.
Erik Pontoppidan, along with Andreas Hojer, was a key personality in the
Reformation campaign, which culminated in the years around the Jubilee activities. After
several years as parish pastor on the island of Als, Pontoppidan had become pastor to the
King at Frederiksborg castle. That same year he published his own history of the
Reformation. Pontoppidan’s pietism suited the King, and the following year saw Pontoppidan
become pastor to the court. In the year of the Bicentenary, he published in Latin his strange
little pamphlet with the title “Broom for Sweeping out the Old Remnants”, an instructive tract
which used cultural historical documentation to explain the timeliness of a renewed
Reformation against extant active remnants of both paganism as well as Catholicism, known
as Papism.8
3
In practice, Erik Pontoppidan elaborated “the broom” which was to do the
“sweeping”: the new exposition of the church-catechism. Pontoppidan was to replace the
local variations of catechism instruction with an authorized uniform framework.
Pontoppidan’s model was the German pietist Ph. J. Spener’s “Einfältige Erklärung der
christlichen Lehre”(1677), which appeared in Danish translation in 1728.9
In July 1737, the printing house at the Vajsenhouse in Copenhagen obtained the rights
to publish the new textbook, in return for annually distribuing 1500 copies among the poor.10
A large-scale book production was begun, and the manual became one of the 18th century’s
largest book projects. In August 1738, the project had reached the point where the King could
decree that the book should be used by all new pupils in Denmark and Norway.11
But how could the central state power ensure that its intentions would be realized, that
the true Christianity took root, that it was actually preached in church, taught in the schools or
by the priest, and that these teachings were realized in the life of the congregation?
The dissemination and application of “Truth to Godfearingness”
The King decreed that Pontoppidan’s catechism exposition be used in all churches and
schools and at private instruction in Denmark and Norway. The question, therefore, is not
whether it was disseminated, for indeed it was, but, rather, how it became disseminated.
As mentioned, the Vajsenhouse printing house obtained sole rights to publish the
book on July 19th, 1737. With the publication privileges, the printing house obligated itself to
meet the demand for catechism expositions for a fixed price of 10 Danish shillings and to
deliver 1500 copies annually for distribution among the poor. From the Vajsenhouse
executive negotiations, we read that a normal press run of an edifying instruction manual was
2000 copies.12 It was thus almost an entire press run that was to be donated, and this provides
some indication of the massive order that the Ecclesiastical central administration had given
to the printing house.
The Vajsenhouse certainly had plenty enough to do. In 1743, in a letter to the
Ecclesiastical administration, Erik Pontoppidan mentions in passing that the printer had by
that time distributed 70,000 copies, i.e., more than 10,000 a year.13 Pontoppidan’s book was
thus on permanent order at the Vajsenhouse, and remained so for decades. The list of various
preserved editions is impressive: from the 1700s, over 40 different editions of Pontoppidan’s
exposition of the Church-catechism have been preserved.14
4
In the early years, sales of the book overshadowed the obligation to distribute the free
copies to the poor. TheVajsenhouse did not fulfil its distribution obligations, nor were these
obligations precisely formulated as to how and when the distribution should take place. A
new decree, issued on May 11th,1742, clarified these matters. Every third year, 4500 copies of
the book should be distributed among the parishes of Denmark and Norway. The bishop
should distribute the books among the churches in his region and would be charged with
ensuring that they were given to those who were most needy and willing to learn.15 Even
though this amounted to no more than two free books to each parish, the intentions of the
Ecclesiastical administration were clear: the book should reach every corner of Norway and
Denmark.
But how should the catechism exposition be used? What should the pastor, or the
local schoolteacher if one existed, do with the many questions and answers?
The open letter which introduced the new catechism exposition as authorised reading,
contained some important pedagogical considerations. In fact, it appears that it was not
intended that the youth should recite the explanation word for word. Rather, the intention was
that they should understand the content and be able to recapitulate it in their own simple
words.16 The change from learning by rote to comprehension was in this way decreed by law
in connection with the new exposition of the catechism.
Erik Pontoppidan’s book became the cutting edge of the Second Reformation. It was
to be the instrument for creating the disciplined, Christian citizen through uniform instruction
and readings. What was the nature of this truth to God-fearingness?
Pontoppidan began his work from a historical perspective: “We live in an era when
secular wisdom and all types of knowledge founded upon this are on the path toward a higher
degree than our ancestors could possibly have imagined”.17 No one in the secular sciences at
that time would be content with half-truths of the past, he wrote in the introduction to the first
edition. A similar development concerning the insight in “Truths of Religion” was both
desirable and opportune.
We thus witness a 1737 version of optimism. This optimism is founded upon pietism,
and upon words such as “light”, “enlightenment”, “reason” and “truth”, all key concepts in
the exposition of the catechism.
“Light” was a central metaphor and enlightenment a key concept. In the 18th century,
“enlightenment” had both a worldly and a spiritual dimension. Only in the final decades of
the century did the enlightenment concept become explicitly secularised, as we find it in
Kant.18 For Pontoppidan, enlightenment thus has a dual meaning: light is “the advantage of
5
our era over that of our forefathers”. Darkness and twilight can now be left behind. Besides
this secular and intellectual dimension of enlightenment, however, the light of truth and the
true enlightenment also have a spiritual significance for Pontoppidan.
On the question of what “The Word” does to those who convert, allow the the
gospel to come into their heart, the answer is unequivocal: enlightenment. It means living
knowledge and strong conviction about the divine truths.19 But continues Erik Pontoppidan:
Tell me the real difference between human teachings and divine enlightenment!
In the following key answer, which has certainly caused many pupils to break
out into a sweat during their examination, he distinguishes between teachings, which by
reason and diligence are learned by The Word, and enlightenment, which is made active by
The Word. Teachings are located only in the brain and are “a simple historical knowledge”,
while enlightenment occupies the heart. In the distinction between the light in the brain and
the enlightenment of the heart, we find the 18th century’s dual concept of enlightenment
sharply formulated: Light has one dimension conditioned by reason and another
inconceivable, emotional dimension. There is a decisive difference between the two
dimensions, but not necessarily any contradiction or conflict. On the contrary, religious
enlightenment is the key prerequisite for the rebirth of the individual. Here we are at the very
core of Pontoppidan’s manual. The enlightenment of the heart entails the rebirth of a new
person: “in reason a new light, in will a new longing, desire and strength”.20
Having come so far, Pontoppidan could pose the main question: “How does one act
correctly with God’s Word?” The answer was simple: when one first beseeches God about
his spirit’s enlightenment, and then reads with piety and serious afterthought, one can then
act correctly with the Word. One must read, but one must read in order to satisfy the hunger
of the soul, not the curiosity of the flesh. One must not distort the words according to one’s
own belief, but must search “in an impartial way therein for The Truth which is to Godfearingness and try one’s own heart after this”.21 By whom should the Holy Scriptures be
read? By everyone.
The Holy Writ was but the medium, which transmitted The Word to the reader, just as
reading with eye and brain helped transmit The Word to the heart, where true enlightenment
was made active. The result, however, was dependent upon the process: there was no true
enlightenment without learning. The teachings of the brain were to a certain degree a
prerequisite for the enlightenment of the heart and thereby for the formation of the Christian
individual. Literacy was the minimum requirement. It was a decisive step on the path toward
salvation.
6
Spener’s book was the model, in both form and content, for Pontoppidan’s catechism,
but Spener’s text was long and the Danish translation convoluted.22 While Pontoppidan chose
to retain Spener’s construction of the exposition in the form of questions and answers, he
rewrote the text and reformulated the key concepts. At the same time he decided, with a
certain symbolic value, to abolish the list of household duties which was still an independent
text in Spener’s book. The world of the list of duties now belonged to the past.
Self-love, love of they neighbour and citizenship
With the elimination of the list of duties, an independent review of the estate society’s duties
of obedience was kept out of the decreed manual. What remained was the recapitulation of
the obligations according to the Ten Commandments, where duties to the state, to the
household and to the family became part of the exposition of the “second table” of the
commandments.
The “first table” of the Ten Commandments consists of the first three commandments;
taken together they deal with “love to God”. To the question, “What is the essence of the
second table?” Pontoppidan answered: “Love to ourselves and to our fellow man”.23 It is in
the second table that we must seek Pontoppidan’s social teachings which, quite surprisingly,
take their point of departure in love of ourselves—in the individual’s own self-love.
In reality, it is quite consistent to begin with the precondition of love of one’s
neighbour (cf. Matthew, Ch. 22, v. 39): “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self”, which
brings the catechism’s first question, “Is it indeed right to love oneself?”
“Yes,” answers Pontoppidan, as long as love of self is orderly and innocent. But what
is the nature of an orderly and innocent self-love? “It is a desire implanted in Man by God to
make possible his true welfare and salvation”.24 This new concept of welfare becomes a
central feature of Pontoppidan’s social vocabulary.
The key to the understanding of loving they neighbour and the obligations of the
citizen in Pontoppidan is love of self. The positive formulation—that one must treat one’s
fellow citizens or neighbours as one would wish to be treated—is turned on its head by
Pontoppidan: “When I insert myself in the place of my neighbour, and ponder whether I will
fight wildly with him, be cursed, cheated, robbed, criticised behind my back, and that in my
own self-love say, ‘No’, it is for me a rule of love toward my neighbour”.25 In this way,
Pontoppidan establishes a social individual. In this minimal version the utopian demand to
7
love thy neighbour becomes a social opportunity: It opens the perspective of linking together
earthly welfare with heavenly salvation.
Erik Pontoppidan attempted to modernize catechism instruction, to bring it up to date.
The result appears as a combination of the secular Enlightenment’s view of man as a social
being with the sin-conscious demands of Pietism for active intervention, action and strength
of will. In Pontoppidan’s reborn, Christian person, one catches a glimpse of the 18th century’s
new, self-assured social individual – the individual possesed with a moral sentiment.
The reception of Pontoppidans exposition of the Church-catechism
It was unavoidable that a new instruction manual which took a position on the theological
controversies of the time and broke with the patriarchal list of duties would arouse opposition
and even resistance. In the town of Aarhus, the pastor Fr. Nannestad attacked the book from
the pulpit and would have it burned, though he ultimately came to use it.26 Erik Pontoppidan
summarized the book’s reception in a letter to the central administration - the Church
Collegium - thusly: “How the audience received it is well known, the common people
corrected themselves at each place according to the various tastes of its clerical
authorities”.27 It was their pastor’s judgement that was decisive for the opinions of the
ordinary layman, and among the sceptical pastors there was one who took up the cause of
resistance: Niels Tøxen, pastor in the parish Verst and Bekke in the county of Andst, outside
the east Jutland town of Kolding.
When Bishop H.A. Brorson, at a country-wide church assembly in Ribe in 1742,
reminded the pastors of their obligations to utilize the authorized catechism exposition,
Tøxen went for his pen and complained about Pontoppidan.
Tøxen argued that the good self-love was the root of all evil in Pontoppidan’s book.
Tøxen could find no command for self-love in the Holy Scriptures; he saw it as being
Pontoppidan’s invention. The background for Tøxen’s anger about self-love was the
consequences it obtained for the Christian view of man. In Pontoppidan, it was somehow
possible for man to keep to God’s law. This law, in its strictest version, demanded
unconditional love of thy neighbour. It was a monstrosity that mankind, no matter how
converted and reborn it might be, was no longer completely powerless before God. When this
was added together with Pontoppidan’s concept of enlightenment, the perspectives became
baffling.28 Man was neither completely powerless before God nor completely dependent on
8
his local pastor. Tøxen’s resistance ultimately led to his being dismissed as pastor. A new
pastor was named, enabling Pontoppidan to be read by the congregation in Verst.
After these “birth pangs”, there was official tranquillity regarding the school textbook
situation, and the only nod toward the critique was the approval to publish an abridged
version of the catechism exposition in 1771 during the Struensee regime. The writings of
Peder Saxtorph, the pastor and member of the Hutterite Brethren Society in Copenhagen,
were important within the revivalist circles, and it was Saxtorph who edited the “Extracts of
Erik Pontoppidan’s Exposition, Excerpted for the Use by Simple Folk”.29 The “Extracts”
radically reduced the extent of questions and answers, but from 1785 it appears in an
“enlarged and improved edition”, where Saxtorph anonymously returns to a more detailed
version of Pontoppidan’s text, including the distinction between proper and improper selflove. In Copenhagen “The Extracts” went out of print after 1798, but in Norway the book
obtained a long life on the book market, comprising the basis for the many Norwegian
Pontoppidan extracts in the 1800s.
The replacement of Pontoppidan’s “Exposition”
During the culmination of the rationalist tendencies in the first years following the French
Revolution, efforts began to create a new manual for religious instruction. The result was
Bishop Nicolaj Balle’s “Manual of the Evangelical-Christian Religion, Prepared for Use in
the Danish Schools”.30 In 1794, Balle’s text was declared universal and compulsory reading.
Pontoppidan was replaced—at least officially. The introduction of Balle’s manual gave rise
to several conflicts—mostly in Norway, but also on the island of Bornholm and in Jutland.31
The conflicts raged between the state-ecclesiastical power in Copenhagen and local
congregations in the periphery. No longer were these controversies limited to the clerics and
within the church’s administration. It was now a conflict between the common people and the
authorities, between citizens and the state.
The congregations kept their children home from school (and from the book of
Bishop Balle), while they met privately to read Pontoppidan’s exposition and his edition of
Kingo’s psalms. The same book which had previously been diffused by way of royal decrees
could not be eliminated by law, nor by any sort of verdict in the parishes, where Pontoppidan
had contributed to: “in reason a new light, in will a new longing, desire and strength.”
The situation became especially tense in the eastern Jutland area around Kolding,
Horsens and Vejle. It was not far from this parish that pastor Tøxen had fought against the
9
Bishop and the Church Collegium, having expressed his fear of Pontoppidan’s “enthusiasm”.
At that time, it had been incumbent upon the authorities to press forward with the authorized
catechism exposition, with its emphasis on the need to achieve reading for understanding.
After a little more than half a century of this kind of literacy the authorities had lost control
over the uses of literacy. Even with fines and punishments, it was not possible to prevent the
revivalist congregations from using Pontoppidan’s textbook. The feud culminated with the
“Great Pontoppidan Address”, a request from the parish of Øster Snede to the Chancellery in
1835, supported with signatures from the entire country, for the free exercise of religion.32
At that time and afterwards, the conflicts surrounding the replacement of
Pontoppidan’s manual were viewed as a rebellion against the modern ideas of enlightenment
from a common people, which held onto their tradition-bound lifestyle. But the conflict in
Øster Snede and in many other locations was also an unintended consequence of the
intensified diffusion of literacy and of the teachings, which had been the original intention of
“the Second Reformation”.
The reforms of the 1730s reflect various state interests. There is the interest in
educating the population as both Christians and as citizens. In addition, we can identify the
state’s interest in increased control of society at all levels. In the form Pontoppidan rendered
to the instruction, the first interest became an obstacle for the second.
The struggle over Pontoppidan’s manual was not only a struggle between modern,
enlightened ideas and traditional ones. In its content, it was a case of a conflict between two
different versions of the modern breakthrough in catechism teaching in the eighteenth
century. It was a conflict between Pietism and Rationalism, whose social views of man
worked for some of the same goals as those which opposed the orthodoxy of the past.
Echoes of Pontoppidan: opposition and tradition in 19th century Denmark and Norway
In December 1814, the revivalist preacher Hans Nielsen Hauge left prison in Christiania in
Norway for the last time. The case against him had ended. Hauge had been convicted of
violating the prohibition on religious gatherings (according to Konventikelplakaten from
1741) and of slandering pastors and authorities. That same year, Norway, following the
Treaty of Kiel and after the Eidsvoll Constitution, was no longer tied to the central
administration in Copenhagen, which had controlled the process from afar. Immediately prior
to the beginning of the long trial against Hauge, in 1804, he had visited the revivalist circles
in Jutland, where the controverse between Pontoppidan and Bishop Balle was taking place.33
10
Hauge and the Hauge movement had a tremendous impact on the institutionalisation
of Pontoppidan’s text in Norway in the nineteenth century. The resolution from September
8th, 1818 states that Balle’s text could continue to be used where it was already in use, while
for the remainder public schools and confirmation instruction no other textbook could be
used besides Pontoppidan’s “Truth to God-fearingness” and Saxtorph’s extracts of same.
Balle’s officially authorized textbook could be used, while Pontoppidan’ had to be used for
the future. The resolution was a provocation to the chancellery in Copenhagen and to the
former administration.
We are now back to Hertzberg’s little debate book from 1885, “The Shortcomings of
Pontoppidan’s Exposition and the Principles for a New One”, with which I began this essay.
Niels Hertzberg, an exponent of teacher college training for the institutionalised
Norwegian schools, proved unable to cast Pontoppidan out of the market. The new textbooks
which the debate brought with it were based primarily on Pontoppidan. Several new
textbooks would subsequently appear, but Pontoppidan’s would prove to outlive them. An
abbreviated version by J.R. Sverdrup brought Pontoppidans book into the 20th century.
In Denmark, the original “Truth to God-fearingness” (1737 edition) appeared in
Horsens in the 1840s as part of a local victory over the authorities. It became permissible to
teach children at home following Pontoppidan, as long as they were to be examined in
school. New editions of the text were produced in Jutland, but it was only the unabridged text
which was republished. Saxtorph’s “Extract” did not find renewed diffusion, as occurred in
Norway. Pontoppidan’s text was and remained the stuff of conflict in Denmark.
The authorities’ acquiescence in the Pontoppidan case after four decades of resistance
came too late to alter the peasants’ position on the political chessboard. The “Peasant
Circular” was the move from the authorities, which in November 1845 decided the game. The
circular outlawed the holding of political meetings without the approval of the police, and it
absolutely forbade meetings across parish boundaries. It was a political repetition of the
religious konventikelplakat from the 18th century, and there was a narrow historical
association between the revivalist movements and the new political movements in the
countryside. When the “Peasant Circular” was again revoked in May 1846, the political
association known as The Society of the Friends of the Peasant had become a reality.
That the legacy from the pietism of the eighteenth century allied itself with liberal
political forces in the final phase of the absolutist regime is due to a combination of political
events. The religious worldview and the key concepts, which we have investigated above,
made their impact in different political contexts. Pietism and the religious movements did not
11
have a specific political implication. This applied in the eighteenth century as well as in the
nineteenth century. The Second Reformation could contribute to the modernization of the
absolutist state’s educational and administrative system from the 1730s, and the revivalist
movements could contribute to the demise of the absolutist state institutions in the 1840s. The
common denominator for the impact of pietism was individualization and responsibility. The
internalisation of the Christian sense of belief individualized the relationship to God, and
made salvation an individual matter. Responsibility and conscientiousness followed
enlightenment, “in reason a new light, in will a new longing, desire and strength”.
The historical effects of Pontoppidan’s religious instruction manual in Norway and
Denmark differed only on the political surface. Underneath these controversies, the
undercurrent was the same, whether the text was the expression of tradition after the Eidsvoll
Constitution or the medium for opposition in the period before the Danish Constitution of
June 1849.
12
1
N. Hertzberg, Manglerne ved Pontoppidans Forklaring og Principerne for en ny (Christiania 1885), p.2.
Erik Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, udi en eenfoldig Forklaring over sal. D.Morten Luthers liden
Catechismo (København 1737).
3
Hertzberg, op.cit., p.2.
4
Questions concerning the relations between Protestant discourse and economic development, as discussed by
Max Weber, were posed in a modern political context by Mary Fulbrook, Piety and Politics. Religion and the
rise of Absolutism in England, Württemberg and Prussia (Cambridge 1983) and Richard Gawthrop, Pietism and
the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia (Cambridge 1993). A review of recent research is presented by James
van Horn Melton, “Pietism, Politics and the Public Sphere in Germany”, Religion and politics in Enlightenment
Europe, edited by James E. Bradley & Dale K. van Kley (Notre Dame, Indiana 2001), pp. 294-333.
5
The Reformation was commemorated in 1717 from October31th to November 7th in Denmark-Norway too,
Bibliotheca Danica vol. 1 (København 1877), p. 151-154. The Bicentenary was repeated as a local event in
1736, Bibliotheca Danica vol. 2 (København 1886), p. 906.
6
Edvard Holm, Danmarks-Norges Historie (1720-1814) vol. 2 (København 1893-94), p.651.
7
Forordning af 13. januar 1736, J.H.Schou & Kolderup Rosenvinge Chronologisk Register over de Kongelige
Forordninger og Aabne Breve…1670-1849, (København 1795-1850).
8
Erik Pontoppidan, Fejekost til at udfeje den gamle surdejg eller de i de danske lande tiloverblevne og her for
dagen bragte levninger af saavel hedenskab som papisme, edited by Jørgen Olrik, (København 1923).
9
Phil. Jac. Spener, Den christlige Lærdoms eenfoldige Udleggelse efter D. M. Lutheri liden Catechismi Orden,
(København 1728). The book was reedited in 1730 and 1740, Bibliotheca Danica vol. 1 (København 1877), p.
266. Martin Brecht: „Philip Jacob Spener, sein Programm und dessen Auswirkungen“, Martin Brecht (red.),
Geschichte des Pietismus, bd. 1, 1993, p. 440. About the general reception of pietism and the historiography of
pietism in Denmark: Tyge Krogh: “Rationalismens syndebuk. Christian 6. og pietismen i dansk
historieskrivning”, Ning de Coninck-Smith, Mogens Rüdiger og Morten Thing (red.): Historiens Kultur.
Fortælling, kritik, metode, 1997, p. 61-79.
10
Rescript, July 19. 1737, L.Fogtman & Algreen-Ussing, Kongelige Rescripter, Resolutioner og Collegialbreve
1660-1848, (København 1786-1854).
11
Rescript, August 22. 1738, Fogtman, op.cit.
12
Holger Frederik Rørdam, “Blade af Waisenhusets ældste Historie”, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 4.R. 3: (189395), p. 37. Harald Ilsøe, Bogtrykkerne i København og deres virksomhed ca. 1600-1810 (København 1992), p.
116.
13
Holger Frederik Rørdam, “Præsten Niels Tøxen i Verst, Orthodoxiens Ridder i Pietismens Tid”,
Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 5.R. 1: (1902-1903), p. 460.
14
Bibliotheca Danica vol. 1 op.cit. p. 266-267. Mogens Brøndsted, “Historien om Potoppidans »Forklaring« i
Danmark og Norge”. Fund og Forskning 12: (1965), p. 52.
15
Rescript, May 11. 1742, Fogtman, op.cit.
16
Rescript, August 22. 1738, Fogtman, op.cit.
17
Pontoppidan 1737, op.cit., Preface.
18
Im. Kant, Hvad er Oplysning? En Afhandling (København 1797). A translation of „Beantwortung der Frage:
Was ist Aufklärung?“, Berlinische Monatsschrift: (1784).
19
Pontoppidan 1737, op.cit., §482-483.
20
Pontoppidan 1737, op.cit., §487-488.
21
Pontoppidan 1737, op.cit., §9.
22
Spener 1728, op.cit.
23
Pontoppidan 1737, op.cit., §141.
24
Pontoppidan 1737, op.cit., §144.
25
Pontoppidan 1737, op.cit., §149.
26
M. Neiiendam, Erik Pontoppidan. Studier og bidrag til pietismens historie vol. 2 (København 1933), p. 265.
27
Rørdam 1902-1903, op.cit., p. 459.
28
Rørdam 1902-1903, op.cit., pp. 427-432.
29
[Peder Saxtorph], Udtog af Erik Pontoppidans Forklaring, til de Enfoldiges Nytte uddraget (København
1771)
30
[Nic. Eding Balle & Chr. Bastholm], Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion til Brug i de danske
Skoler (København 1791).
31
Brøndsted, op.cit., pp. 53-64.
32
Anders Pontoppidan Thyssen, Vækkelsernes frembrud i Danmark i første halvdel af det 19. århundrede. Vol.
4: De ældre jyske Vækkelser, (København 1967), p. 232.
2
13
33
Elle Jensen, ”De stærke Jyders første Tid”, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 6. R. 5: (1945) p. 21.
14